


in the room the women come and go, talking of michelangelo

by goosemixtapes



Category: The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/F, finn is trans!, lesbophobes don't even LOOK at this or i will stomp you to death with my hooves, sean n puck r lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 20:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17474066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goosemixtapes/pseuds/goosemixtapes
Summary: There’s a girl on the beach, and it’s only notable to Sean because now there’s two of them.aka "hehe sean kendrick he/him lesbian"





	in the room the women come and go, talking of michelangelo

**Author's Note:**

> title from "the love song of alfred j prufrock" because i am fake-artsy

There’s a girl on the beach, and it’s only notable to Sean because now there’s two of them.

~~~

It’s hard to keep a secret of any kind on Thisby. Especially secrets like this, the ones that swell to fit any container they’re given. Sean made the switch early, very early, which he suspects is why he’s been able to get away with it. He barely remembers the way-back-when before. It was his mother who wouldn’t let him be anything else, and when she left, so did the little Kendrick girl with bouncing ponytails and hand-sewn dresses.

Those who do know - Father Moonyham, Annie from Fathom and Sons - keep quiet. Sean is either grateful about that or angry that he has to be. He’s never quite sure.

(They still have him wrong, all of them. They think he’s a man - which makes sense, because so did he, way-back-when. His father died calling Sean his son. It’s for the better; the Malverns took him in thinking he was any other boy.

It wasn’t until Sean was fifteen - gangly, never at ease - that he first got his hands on books and magazines from the mainland, and saw what there could be between two women. It was staring silently after girls he was frightened to touch that he realized he was something else entirely, something he doesn’t even have a name for.)

The vest beneath his clothing binds down his chest. He is slight and narrow-hipped; his voice is low and he doesn’t often use it; he keeps his hair chopped short and picks up sanitary supplies from Annie. Nothing gets out. If the likes of Mutt Malvern knew what he is, Sean’s world would be a different place.

And so he keeps his secret, and stamps it down to keep it from spreading, and nothing changes. And then there is Puck Connolly.

~~~

“A girl can’t ride in the Scorpio Races.” That’s all anyone will say, nowadays - sometimes with a scoff and an eye-roll, as if to say _what’s the world coming to?_ , but sometimes with a darkly serious expression that might unsettle a more anxious person than Sean. They always call Puck a girl, never a woman. They always refer to her mount as the little dun pony with the hay-belly, though Sean knows that Dove is at least a horse.

“A girl can’t ride in the Scorpio Races.” In Peg Gratton’s bar, when Puck’s shaking fingers inscribe her name on the chalkboard, it starts as a whisper and spreads through the crowd. When Sean steps inside, it’s grown to a shout.

Peg has left the top of the board open for him. The bar is loud and dimly lit and it smells of beer and sweat; Sean wouldn’t trust any of the men inside farther than they could ride on Corr. But he stays calm, focusing on the writing. The curve of the S in his name has never become less satisfying under his fingers.

“Well, we’re not going to let her _enter_ ,” someone booms from nearby. “A girl can’t enter the Races.”

Sean nods to Peg and slips back through the crowd. _A woman has entered the Races,_ he will never say. _A woman has already won._

~~~

When the figure in the mare mask smears her hand across his face, he almost flinches away. This night is a dream, and she a demon, and he doesn’t know what she can feel in his cheekbones, if his face betrays him, if his skin spells out his truth.

“The ocean knows your name, Sean Kendrick,” she tells him, and Sean thinks: _So do I. I always have._

“Make another wish.”

He has, historically, tried not to. Winning is all he can think about. The other wishes hurt too much.

When he stands beside the rock, when he calls out, “I’ll speak for her,” Sean doesn’t say it for Puck. Sean says it because he will never be able to tell them all - Eaton, Privett, Mutt - the sick, wonderful twist behind what they’re saying. Sean will never be able to tell them, and so when he raises his voice for Puck Connolly, he does it for himself.

Except then he makes eye contact with her, standing atop that rock with her hands clenched at her sides and her shoulders squared back and her hair blowing about her face, terrified and furious and so, so alive, and Sean’s stomach twists, and he realizes he said it for Puck after all.

~~~

“So what’s going on between you and that Connolly girl?” Holly asks, and Sean can’t answer. Puck is everything he wishes he were brave enough to be, and everything he is so glad he is not. She is a mirror and a magnet and a blade that cuts him deep. It’s a cruel thing - that dresses choke him, that his body betrays him, that even the word she rasps over his ears like stone over stone, and yet that he wants nothing more than for Puck to see him as a woman. To touch him as a woman.

~~~

When he takes his shirt off on the beach, no one notices. This is mostly because of Corr, and the blood on Corr’s teeth, and the blood all over the poor sap lying on the sand, who ought to have known better than to trust Mutt Malvern. Someone is dead, and it is not November yet, and this means everyone has a bit more to focus on than Sean Kendrick and what he may or may not be wearing.

Even those who look don’t know what it means. The vest that binds down his chest looks like only that, a vest. It makes sense that he would wear an extra garment there, to keep his skin from touching Corr, to keep his heart from getting too close to the great thundering heart of the _capaill_ , where it might be sucked into Corr’s rhythm. It terrifies him to expose himself like that on the beach, but when he stands with his stomach pressed against Corr’s side and feels Corr’s panic tingle against his skin, he knows he had no other option. No one notices. No one cares.

He is wrapping Corr’s legs in seaweed when Puck arrives with his freshly washed jacket.

“You can leave it on the gate,” Sean says shortly. There are two kinds of hurt: the kind for lingering in and the kind that’s too sour to draw out. Talking to Puck is the latter.

Puck drapes his jacket neatly over the gate. “I want to talk.”

“We don’t all get what we want.”

“Yesterday,” she says, “on the beach. What you were wearing.”

Everything quiets down. All that he’s worked so hard to conceal slips like sand through his fingers.

He lunges out of the stall and has his hands on her arms before he realizes she isn’t going anywhere. “Relax, Kendrick,” she snaps, shaking him off. “You’re like my brother, aren’t you?”

“If you _ever_ say a word about this to-”

Puck takes his wrists in her hands and shakes him. “ _Sean Kendrick._ Finn is the same damn way. I just thought it might be _kind_ of me, you know, to mention it, kind to him and to you, but I suppose-”

Sean goes limp. He’s shaking, he realizes; everything sounds foggy and faraway except Corr’s low clucking from the stall.

“I’m sorry,” Puck says softly. “I didn’t realize - I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well, you did.” He debates going back into the stall. He doesn’t want to turn his back on Puck quite yet, though.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is gentle; she really seems to mean it. “I told you. Finn - my brother - he’s a man just like you are. Well, a boy, I suppose.”

Maybe because he’s tired, maybe because he’s panicky, maybe because he can’t keep his mouth shut around Puck - it slips out. “I’m not a man.”

Puck’s indignant response on his behalf is misguided and greatly appreciated. “Having - having _breasts_ doesn’t make you any less of a man.”

“I know,” Sean says, flipping the catch on the stall and returning to Corr. It’s too late to hold it in now, anyhow. “But I’m not one.”

She pauses for long enough for him to start wrapping again. “Then what are you?” When he turns, she’s peering over the top of the stall at him.

“I’m the four-time winner of the Scorpio Races,” Sean tells her.

Her face shifts through startled, almost offended, and finally thoughtful. “Fair enough,” she allows after a moment.

That shouldn’t be enough to prompt him further, and yet. “I’m a woman. Just… I don’t know.” She’s silent, and her silence feels expectant. “I’m Sean. I’m just a person.”

“Funny,” Puck says, “I could have mistaken you for one of the _capaill_.” Her words are biting, but there’s an undertone of softness in her voice, and Sean realizes quite abruptly that he has not even let himself imagine what it might be like to share this and be accepted.

~~~

There are few things Sean wants. (Corr.) To win again. (Corr.) To be out from under Malvern’s boot and free of Mutt. (Corr.) His father’s house. (Corr. Corr.)

(Sometimes, when they are at the farthest edge of the island, curtained by cliffs and hills and rocks, Sean takes his vest off, as well. Corr doesn’t hold his body against him; when their chests touch, their heartbeats match up and Sean is able to feel, sometimes, like he has no body at all.

Corr strains always for the sea, for the thing he can never have, but he stays with Sean, and their hearts beat in unison.)

~~~

Puck is the only other person to ever ride Corr. Part of it is that Sean can sit behind her, can press into her back without fear that his chest or hips will give him away. Part of it is that he’s mostly sure Corr won’t eat her.

“Mostly?” Puck repeats, one eyebrow raised, after they dismount and he explains.

“I’m mostly sure I won’t drown in the bathtub, either,” he points out. “Doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

~~~

Holly offers him a job, and Sean hates how long he considers the prospect. He could be free from Malvern at last. He could leave this tiny island of prying eyes and reedy gossip. There are people like him on the mainland, he knows; there are communities, and more, there are treatments. Medicine. Surgeries.

To leave the island would tear his heart in two. To leave the water horses - he cannot imagine it.

~~~

(There are few things Sean wants. Puck Connolly. Corr.)

~~~

Dinner at the Connollys’ is a strange thing. Sean is used to tight rooms and tighter silences; this cavernous kitchen, cluttered and crowded with both of Puck’s brothers and Tommy Falk, is unfamiliar territory. But it’s… nice. The Connollys are raucous, but they speak to him like he’s a part of their family. The tension between Puck and Gabe relaxes for the night, and after dinner ends, Finn ushers Sean into the back room to pepper him with questions about his vest and how he hides and about the _races_ , because _you had better be helping Puck, so she won’t be hurt - you are, aren’t you?_ (He sewed it on his own, he keeps to himself, and yes, most certainly and always yes.) 

Puck rescues him eventually, pulling him out to the front stoop to thank him for the food he brought. “It means a lot,” she tells him earnestly. “I hope - I hope you had a decent time, I-”

“It was nice,” Sean says softly. “I’m glad I came.”

“I’m glad you came, too. You know, I always thought I was above this sort of thing, since I was in love with Doctor Halsal, and now-” She breaks off.

Sean tilts his head. “What sort of thing?”

Puck’s voice is cool, but her face is starting to turn the same color as her hair. “Oh. You know.”

A beat.

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Being… preoccupied with people.” Puck’s eyes flit from his face to the ground as she flushes. “Not that - I mean, I -”

Sean’s stomach is starting to twist. “Not that you what?”

“Not that I don’t - I mean, Doctor Halsal was just… I mean, _women_ ,” Puck says desperately. “You know?”

He does.

Puck’s face is getting redder and redder. “God, this is a mess,” she mutters. “All I’m trying to say is - I don’t want to hurt you.”

Sean blinks, because that is the last thing he’s expected. “I don’t - I don’t know that you could, Puck. Kate.” A moment passes, during which she shifts ever-so-slightly closer to him, and he feels compelled to say again, “And I’m - _not_ a man, so I don’t…”

“But you want people to see you as one,” Puck says, and something in her voice makes his throat clench, because she really is trying to understand, and - and he doesn’t think anyone ever has.

And he does want people to see him that way. He does, because the prickle of discomfort when they call him the man who’s won four times outweighs what they’d call him if they knew.

“Peg Gratton says I act like I want to be treated like a man,” Puck tells him. “I don’t know if that’s true.” She shrugs like she’s shuddering, clearly uncomfortable with the thought, and her red hair cascades over her shoulders, and Sean’s wishes burn like coals in his stomach. “Maybe if they all treat me like a man, you know, they’d leave me alone.”

“That’s it,” Sean says, and it almost brings tears to his eyes. “That’s exactly it. But I don’t - I don’t want _you_ to see me that way.”

Puck touches his cheek gently. “Funny thing,” she says, “I don’t want that either.”

When they kiss, it doesn’t matter that someone will die tomorrow.

~~~

“That’s a poor match, Sean Kendrick,” Dory Maud says. “Neither of you are a housewife.”

She goggles when he laughs out loud.

~~~

When he separates from Puck at the starting line, it feels like a knife in Sean’s gut. The stretching, creaking seconds before the race starts are the worst of his life.

Then there’s a lot - a lot of Puck, a lot of Corr, a lot of pounding hooves and threes and sevens and iron, and then there’s Mutt and Skata and then

there is not much at all, until he opens his eyes to see red red red above him and there is seawater in his mouth and Puck in the sand beside him and Corr, Corr, Corr.

~~~

A woman wins the Scorpio Races for the fifth year in a row. Puck Connolly is the Scorpio Queen, hair burning like a brand, seated astride an otherworldly Dove, and Sean’s broken ribs aren’t the only reason it’s hard to breathe.

The house, they can save the house, that’s what Puck keeps saying when the reporters have all cleared out and left her alone. Her shoulders slump with relief; her eyes brim with exhausted tears. They can save the house, and Sean’s chest is heavy and light all at once, and he is in love with Kate Connolly.

This feeling is independent of circumstance. It would be true whether they were penniless beggars on the mainland or twice as rich as Malvern. But, he must admit, it is not diminished when she presses a fistful of bills into his hand. Sean doesn’t understand at first.

“This is enough for the house,” he agrees, and Puck looks like she’s about to shake him. Thankfully, she remembers his ribs.

“Finn bet,” she tells him urgently. “On _me_ , I mean. This isn’t ours - this is yours.”

Sean’s world shrinks down to the money in his hand and Puck’s face inches from his. Then it expands so quickly he has to sit down.

~~~

When he stands knee-deep in the ocean, it is with tears streaming down his face and his heart beating the rhythm of the waves.

When Corr turns around, he can’t breathe for sobbing.

Corr presses his face into Sean’s neck, and Sean threads his fingers into Corr’s mane, and Puck is at his side, and he lets the tears gloss his face like the sea washing over the shore. He is Corr’s. He is Kate’s. And, perhaps for the first time in his life, Sean is his own.

**Author's Note:**

> god there's nothing like ao3 formatting to shame me for my overuse of italics. anyway, constructive criticism on my writing is welcome ("lesbians can't use he/him" isn't constructive criticism) & feel free to follow me on tumblr @ goosemixtapes!


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